Grrl Power #506 – Square root access
Krona may have root access, but it seems someone else has machine level access.
So yeah, Krona may have some… well, not insight, really, but she might help unlock a piece of the orbs’ puzzle. As intricate as that big panel is, it’s about 1/10th of what I had pictured when I started it. I would have needed a full or even a double page spread and another week to draw it. Still, you get the idea. Just pretend a dozen people from WETA spend a month doing it in CG.
Apparently the orbs were all “Hey, time travel, or… sort of. Whatever that was. Sure, that’s worth a point.”
A related note for the prior page; Cartomancer is apparently what Izanagi is, with the card magic. Several people informed me in the comments. I’ve never actually seen Card Captor Sakura or Yu-Gi-Oh! besides flipping by it on a channel, and just happened to catch him speaking in a comically deep voice. Someone explained to me that he’s possesed or has a split personality or something that takes over probably for clutch dramatic reasons. Anyway it was jarring seeing a 13(?) year old talking like M. Bison.
Oh, also related to the previous page, by request I cut out the panel of Max flying and posted over at DA. Enjoy!
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like. Share the comic with your friends, then compete with them to see who can contribute the most!
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Ok – wow….
I CAN SEE THROUGH TIME!
Well, time travel, teleportation, surviving (sort of) a boss monster encounter, that’s some XP gains there.
What is that from originally?
I’ve heard it in two separate works of MLP fanfiction.
(Discord in “Project Sunflower : Harmony” and Pinkie Pie in the animated “Double Rainboom”.)
Lisa Simpson eating some of Apu’s super hot curry. (Which wouldn’t affect Sydney at all mind you.)
Try this
Also:
Phooey. Code fail.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/80574-oh-god-i-can-see-forever
I can see events that happened many years ago!
*howls to the starry night sky*
You-u-u-tuuuuuube.
Millennia actually. Some of the biggest, brightest stars out there may no longer exist, but the light that left so long ago is still travelling to us. One day the light from the supernova that happened last week will reach us, but not for quite some time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmfwaW_ss8c&index=27&list=PLqhXPziaE2p3JrsGFaEIJ5jWZUnGyyKgx
Is this the equivalent to pressing the key that shows the game logs? Also, some RT references here!
I prefer “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever”
And then there’s the classic “My god, it’s full of stars.”
Spiders. Astronomers have it wrong. It is the Milky Web.
That’s not a wormhole! It’s a trap door spiderweb! Augh!!!
Well I can see a time-traveller, through Vanity.
I fully agree with Emma Watson. As a feminist I have the right to choose to show my own body, or not. In support of her stance, here is my topless photoshoot.
Not visible to a camera?
She’s the only one that sees it?
Halo sees it also but not how it’s useful?
Maybe Mortals shouldn’t roll God’s dice.
Halo can see the Skill Tree, Krona can see the cheat sheet poster for it.
To me it looks more like she is in debug mode and can see the underlying code to see what the orbs actually do.
Oh those crazy aliens, always forgetting to leave a manual when leaving mysterious artifacts lying around.
I think that’s the manual, but only Krona sees it…
that looks more like the data log that scroll by when relaunching the program
They give you the manual, you just keep misplacing it.
I thing Krona is the only one who sees it. If Halo could see it, she’d be squealing and spinning with excitement like she usually does. I think Krona has now provided Halo with a perfect partner; they must form a symbiotic relationship that helps with each other’s powers.
Everyone can see the basic skill tree though it can’t be recorded by camera.
I think if Dabbler were nearby, Krona would be setting off her porno-sense in a big way….
Now that, dear sir would be great to see.
I bet Dabbler would get a full charge and be set for a week.
Dabbler is probably picking her up from three counties away!
I…is that….a pokeball??!?? A pokeball is the deep code of the universe??!??
It’s either a pokeball or a Death Star either way I am disturbed on a fundamental level.
The ‘Pokeball’ is in LightBee’s ability stack, so the might have something to do with the teleport option.
Bugger, your right…. here I was thinking it was on an unknown orb…
Pocket dimension?
Maybe she’ll jet to learn hammerspace
A POKEBALL ON THE UNKNOWN ORB!!!!!
SYDNEY CAN CAPTURE SUPERS…..
Maxima I chose you…..
Now I can’t help picturing the scene from Tower of Terror where Jessie gets struck in the face with a pokéball. Just replace Jessie with Max and the pokéball with the orb.
or she can capture and use super’s abilities
That’s no Poke ball. That’s a space station!
It looks like the Death Stars to me.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
And how long have you been holding that one in Mister Juan? Darn it all Sydney you broke the mage again.
He will become more powerful than you can imagine.
I am not letting anyone cut me in half. Those robes are expensive.
People have been mentioning that Sydney’s orbs and Krona’s abilities might be related, this might just confirm that. Or at the very least she can see the invisible layer Dabbler thought there might be that explains some of the functions.
Now lets hope Sydney remembers which point she was asked to fill in first… which I just realize she doesn’t need to remember because Pixel was there and can direct her right now.
Yeah, with Pixel there, she might remember. Of course we’re talking about Sydney here, so, maybe not…
….Pixel was there …. when?
She sure wasn’t there when Sidney DID fill in the first point.
Pixelicious was first introduced when Dabbles and Gwen started scribbling on a whiteboard trying to determine what the nodes may mean (Sydney didn’t like her back then)
…And Sydney was also dozing off when Dabbler & Pixel were talking about the orbs. It’s quite possible that Sydney won’t remember & Pixel will have to remind her.
It is one thing to have access to the kernel source code. It is another thing altogether to read it and figure out which module your friend should tune to improve network performance. Hmm ,maybe even stumble upon the kernel source code.
Hate this comic strip and the following blog post with burning intensity.
Krona is really special, so Sydney needs to be shown to be even more super special. Really.. ?
This really isnt doing anything positive for the Mary Sue accusations…
Sydney is the main character, sooo…. yeah she should be pretty special to stand out in this world of supers, aliens, and extra-humans. This doesn’t really change anything about Sydney though, just gives us a little more information about the orbs.
YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT, RIGHT NOW!!
If you are going to spout “Mary Sue”, at least get it the fuck correct
And Sydney is only the ‘main character’ for now, because this is her flash back story
I think your reasoning is flawed.
We’re seeing no new powers for Sydney, except for whatever she spends her point on.
What we’re seeing is a new facet of Krona’s power – she can see extra detail that nobody else has been capable of, including Sydney and Dabbler, and might have some extra insight into how Sydney’s orbs work.The added insight might even help increase Krona’s own capabilities, but might not necessarily help Sydney directly – “hey, you know how one of the orbs lets you fly? This is how it lets you fly.”
Lastly, Sydney is the comic’s protagonist, events will always be Sydney-centric. That’s a whole different thing to a Mary Sue. You don’t read a Batman comic to see Superman’s strong points.
+1 (I’ve never plus oned anybody before. That was short, airtight, and sweet. )
Thank you!
Actually you should have received more than just the one of us commending you.
+10
10x Thank you! :)
Although I’m subtracting a few points from myself for using “insight” when DaveB specifically said it was “not insight, really”, and perhaps for not coming up with a better example than Batman/Superman.
I think that Krona is only going to be useful on that regard if her mind manages to survive the experience…If this comic was depicting the Call of Cthulhu RPG, she’s seeing stuff that would deduct SAN points!
I mean, really, look at her…It’s literally bringing tears to her eyes!
Can confirm. Seeing the workings of the world is far more shocking than the mere zombie that turned my friend indefinitely insane on day one.
Oh, I think Krona can be very useful. She may be the only person who can actually see what the options on the skill tree can actually do, after all.
Oooh… oooh… hidden option? Cheat code for double experience? Could go SOOOOO many ways with the next panel.
I bet whatever route it goes, Sydney is not going to get the time to carefully choose what skill slot to pick.
“OMG, incoming flying saucers!”
“They are shooting at us!”
“Use the buildings for cover!”
“They are dropping ground troops, some kind of monsters!”
“We have time to pick them off, before they reach the ground.”
“Sydney, start shooting. Their shots are slow enough that you can dodge them!”
“Why are they making that DUN, Dun, DUN, Dun noise?”
Jaws?
The olde video game Space Invaders.
Yeah, but seeing how something works also tells you what the heck it does. So far, nobody has been able to roadmap out her skill tree. Doing so would allow Syd to do soooooooooo much min-maxing. I’m sure that she has some glaring holes in her abilities that need an immediate patch. For example… in-field healing or regeneration is a must, if she doesn’t have it. A passive defense for the orbs and or low-level passive defense for Syd (while orbs are present and active), now that the world/villans know about them would be a good idea.
It might be interesting if the request from Arc-Light (Pixel representing them) conflicts with an obvious pick that Krona can recommend based on her code insight. Personally, even if her bosses/commanders want her to upgrade on a certain path, I don’t think that she should feel obligated to do so if an alternative that benefits her is apparent… but that is something the might argue about later.
According to the plan, she’s supposed to take another dog in the Fly Orb next to see if another route opens up. Also might mean she’ll be able to fly faster than Maxima. Which would be awesome.
Unless Krona is able to tell her something important about one of the two unkonwns?
Another Dot. Not dog. I meant another DOT.
You just want to see Yorp in tights wearing his undies on the outside flying :P
Seriously, who doesn’t want to see that?
I actually would be surprised if there wasn’t either some fan fiction or other items related to Yorp already on the deep web.
[insert rule number]
*faster than a speeding bullet*
“faster than a speeding bulldog”?
^_^
That’s like saying that the Hulk is a Mary Sue or Batman is a Mary Sue or Superman is a Mary Sue or Doctor Who is a Mary Sue….
Ludicrously overpowered super special people are an inevitable part of a story about ludicrously overpowered super-powered characters.
As I’ve joked about before, if they’re a girl, they’re a Mary Sue, and if they’re a guy, they’re the protagonist. Maybe this isn’t what OP was thinking and they have other reasoning, but it’s usually a big factor on the interwebs.
Isn’t the male equivalent a “Marty Stu” or something?
Or Gary yeah but I think BloodLily16 ̀means that people go for that accusation more often with female characters. And thinking about it I know quite a few ridiculously OP male characters where nobody brings up those terms.
They do. It’s actually an accusation against male characters more often in fandoms than female characters. Usually going hand in hand with the damning accusation of “self-insert”.
Like Captain Kirk …. ^_^
Gary Stu/Marty Stu.
Like any movie in which Steven Seagal has been in. Except Executive Decision.
was that the one with Kurt Russell? and i think the ONLY movie in that he ever died in?
great idea for a t-shirt, tho, it’d have to be a ‘one-off’ … for Bruce Wayne only: I’m Not BatMan
Imagine if Mary Sue were a Sydney!
Well… Batman actually IS a mary sue. But an awesome one and a rare example of it done WELL. And Halo is not, in ANY way, a Mary Sue. There’s absolutely nothing Mary Sue-ish about her. She’s very flawed, both emotionally and knowledge-wise, not the most powerful person in the room at any given time (at least not yet), and everyone does not swoon around her and how awesome she is. Sydney is actually an incredibly well-balanced character, despite being potentially incredibly powerful.
Just saying someone is a Mary sue because she’s very powerful is showing they dont understand the definiton of a Mary Sue. And saying everything centers around her is misunderstanding the difference between ‘main protagonist’ which happens in MOST literature, and Mary Sue, which happens only in badly written literature. Otherwise might as well call Arthur Dent a Mary Sue. Or Iron Man a Mary Sue. Or Marty McFly a Mary Sue. Or … you get my point. Just because someone is a main protagonist of a story (which makes even MORE sense for Sydney, since this is all from HER recollection flashback) does not make the person a Mary Sue at ALL.
Nah. Batman had weaknesses and made mistakes in the early days.
He just doesn’t age and his campaign has lasted for seventy eight years so far.
Insane amount of experience points.
Batman is not fan fiction, therefore, not “mary sue”.
Sorry to burst your bubble but because Batman has been around for 78 years, and nearly all the writers are fans of the character, all the stories written about him are now fan fiction. It’s paid and better edited than some fan fiction, *cough*kill Quesada *Cough*, but fan fiction none the less.
And with the power creep that every superhero has gone through in the last 30 years, calling any character a Marry Sue is not out of bounds. Especially when the bias’ of the writers shows through.
Now having been pedantic I shall disappear in a cloud of smoke. *cough* *cough* oh this smoke I can’t see anything.
Sydney’s powers are vast but remember, she was just killed (or almost). And not in an epic duel, but by her own stupidity and a brute with a knife whoe held her hands together. That’s far from being a Mary Sue.
> Hate this comic strip and the following blog post with burning intensity.
Ah, yes, the typical Internet jackass who feels the need to:
1) Read something that is (a) an enormous amount of work for the creator and (b) **completely free**
2) Take explicit action to rudely inform you that they, in their special-snowflakeness, dislike your work.
First of all, you’re using the phrase “Mary Sue” wrong. Most Internet snowflakes just know that it is a term of criticism so they throw it around because they lack the erudition to come up with something better or more relevant. What it means is “character who is the best in every way — the prettiest, smartest, beloved by everyone, etc — for whom other people willingly act completely out of character and the world generally bends over backwards.” Sydney is not a Mary Sue — she is far from the prettiest, or the smartest, or etc.
Second, you’re using logic wrong. Sydney is the monkey who picked up a computer and learned how to push some of the buttons. Krona is the highly skilled programmer who actually understand what’s going on. This is exactly the opposite of Sydney being more super special than Krona.
Oh, and if is the line you’re pissing about is “Krona may have root access, but it seems someone else has machine level access” then go back and re-read. Dave wasn’t saying that *Sydney* was the one with machine-level access, he was saying that the *creator of the orbs* had machine-level access. You twit.
If you’re using the analogy “Sydney= monkey with a computer,” then she’s got a computer without the user manual but still learned the punching buttons makes things happen. In a similar vein, Sydney doesn’t have a user manual, but Krona is looking at the Tech Manual of the Source Code itself.
I sort of hope that Krona will want to be around Sydney so much now that she’ll join Archon just so she can be around Sydney the next time that she gets a point so she can examine the deep code even more :)
More people for the A-Team.
Eruditely argued.
As I say “Mary Sue” lacks any merit. It was born out of a bullying hate campaign against a specific individual. And continues to be used to harass writers. It is only of use to trolls, and has been used in that manner here. The term is perfect for them as it is so nebulous that pages of defense have to be used against a one-line accusation. Likewise making it totally unfit for constructive criticism.
Therefore Tor can poke it up his or her arse. I have no interest in its opinion.
Nobody’s forcing you to be here.
While this does make the orbs special, Sidney’s just the goof who found them. And the more special the Orbs are, the higher the odds that, at some point, someone powerful is going to come for them. It’s like, sure, Vision and Doctor Strange in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are special because they have access to Infinity Stones, but that just means Thanos is going to be paying them a visit.
First, this isn’t fan fiction, so Sidney cannot be a Mary Sue.
Second, even inside fan fiction, Mary Sue had a very specific original meaning a few decades ago, and 90% of the usage even when directed at fan fiction is incorrect.
$20 bucks says this development has been planned for years.
Thinking that, once fully filled out, Syd’s gonna be one of the more (if not most) powerful Super there is (maybe ever will be, if one of those orbs grants eternal life/eternal youth)
Infinity Stones anyone?
In that case, once Sydney unlocks all functions, she could probably take out Darkseid, even with the Infinity Gauntlet. After all, The Gauntlet has 6 Souls Stones, Sydney’s got 7 Orbs…
O.o
Are you KIDDING?
Syd could take out DarkSeid RIGHT NOW……….
Her innate ability to confuse the fraggin hell out of her enemies causing them to trip themselves up, just trying to get to her to shut her up…….
She was dangerous WITHOUT the orbs
#utterchaosincarnate
But could she confuse Harley Quinn (animated & ‘own comics’ versions, not Suicide Squad version)?
She doesn’t HAVE to confuse Harley, she just has to be herself………….
Harley will take one look at her and think “and they say I’M crazy?”
And if anyone knows crazy, it’s Harley :P
7th orb = I-pod Shuffle
…I’m pretty sure Darkseid doesn’t use the Infinity Gauntlet. Darkseid’s DC, the Infinite Gauntlet is Marvel. That would probably be Thanos you’re thinking of. And there’s only one Soul Stone in the Marvel Universe, so I’m fairly sure you mean ‘Infinity Stones’.
It’s understandable to confuse the two. To a casual reader, they’re very similar characters. BTW interesting trivia. When the infinity stones were first introduced in “Warlock”, they were ALL referred to as soulstones. Jim Starlin, who created them, didn’t rename them until the “Infinity Gauntlet” mini series.
Once you had the infinity gauntlet though, you could conceivably travel to other realities. Still don’t think the IG has the power to defeat lawyers though.
Nothing can defeat lawyers in the long run. We are legion.
Yes, but the short term could be very, very painful for the lawyers!
“And He was asking him, “What is your name?” And he said to Him, “My name is Legion; for we are many.””
I guess that explains how the Devil’s advocate gig came about.
Just to complete that scriptural thought – The Big J then ordered them out of the man they possessed, and into a herd of pigs nearby, which then threw themselves off a cliff rather than live the rest of their lives as lawyers.
Aww, I avoided that part, as Pander is nice. Along with other lawyers, who do pro bono work and otherwise do their bit to make our society a safer place. Although the profession does have more than its share of the greedy, with their noses in the trough, we should not tar them all with the same brush.
Obviously the big ones need bigger brushes. And don’t forget the feathers.
But none of that for the good ones, like Pander!
Um, just want to point out to Dave that something is currently wrong with the orbs or the grid in the last picture …. this might take some time to rework, as the grid is the thing that is mirrored when it shouldn’t be.
Darkseid did get his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet in an Avengers/JLA crossover, but he declared it a waste of his time when it turns out it was useless for his universe. See: https://comicsalliance.com/files/2011/06/darkseidinfinity.jpg
Also, the Amalgam Comics universe has Thanoseid, but no Infinity Gauntlet — he was searching for the Ultimate Anti-life Nullifier (amalgam of DC’s Anti-Life Equation and Marvel’s Ultimate Nullifier).
Thanos was based on Darkseid, though. Or was it the other way around?
Darkseid => Thanos (who was originally going to be more like Metron, but the bosses told Starlin “If you’re going to steal a New God, steal that one…) => Mongul.
Darkseid, hell. Sydney could take out Squirrel Girl.
You realise that Doreen can stand against Wolverine in a fight?
And you are never in a fight with just Doreen
I severely doubt it. Sydney does not have the focus to foresee and prevent a spontaneous squirrel bombing (see the fight with Modok) and all it would take is them interfering with the orb grab for SG to win.
Assuming that they’re ever on opposite sides, which seems unlikely.
Well Sydney’s hidden arch-nemesis is the evil squirrel overlord. But Squirrel Girl is good, so you are right. Although she is bound to have an evil twin or two, somewhere out there!
You’re REALLY overstating the level of power Sydney has available and massively understating the level of power from the combined Infinity Gems. With the Infinity Gems you’re God, infinitely powerful and completely unbeatable. You have to literally make yourself lose to lose to anyone.
Or be driven to a high level of distraction, which is something that Sydney is very good at. All of the power in the universe means very little if you can’t command it effectively.
;)
and Sydney is perfectly capable of irritatng someone enough for them to use the Infinity Gauntlet on themselves.
What makes you think Sydney will be the one to do this?
She found the orbs on the sea floor with some of the functions already unlocked. My thinking is they were unlocked by one or more previous owners, who died (before they could fill the skilltree fully out) and left the orbs to be found by the next person. The same could happen to Sydney, there are a lot of empty spaces in that pattern and we don’t really know what or how long it takes to rack up the XP needed.
Uh-oh, the bottom panel has flipped the central connections. The dot should be between the Pew Pew orb and the fly ball, not lighthook. Same with the central sigil, not lighthook and comm ball but fly and shield orbs.
That is assuming those internal dots are supposed to remain constant. They might reflect recent usage or current settings rather than full on ‘choose this power’ type slots.
No, look at panel three and then panel Kronagasm: Hentorb and Lightbee are still on Sydney’s right, but the dots and wedges have gone from being on her left to her right
I was just about to post the same. Looks like a mistake if you compare it to the original here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/comics/2014-01-20-GP0181.jpg
All the orbs are in the wrong places or the entire array is the reversed.
Ups, you’re even more right. It’s the orbs that were reversed, not the grid.
Unless the orbs can orient themselves either way, of course.
Oh good, someone else noticed. I’d say this means I’m not crazy, but there’s enough evidence to the contrary that I’m just gonna say it means I’m not wrong.
It is almost certainly just a mirroring error. Dave makes those from time to time. Best to just ignore that, and go by the original skill tree image, if trying to figure out any patterns or implications.
I wonder when it will be corrected.
Probably when DaveB noticed this thread (or another one like it) in these comments.
Text corrections are easy to make. Art ones take time. Anything which does not materially affect the story remains unchanged. It is easy to see that the skill tree is unchanged from the last time we saw it, despite the mirroring error. The only change is one new skill and that appears on the orb, where we know Sydney accidentally picked it.
At the end of the day it is far better to have Dave working on new content, than making time-consuming corrections to old ones.
I wonder which orb she’ll upgrade next? maybe try to access one of the orbs that doesn’t appear to do anything?
ARCLight requested the fly ball, to see if a new branch could be unlocked. I guess Pixel will definitely make it known to Sydney that that’s the one she is to grab once Krona is out of her ecstatic moment.
Max wanted her to add it to the flight orb (what we’re presuming is the “speed” line) to see if it would unlock the shaded bar. Of course, whether Sydney remembers this is another matter.
The last point was given soon after Sydney activated flight & PPO together (for the first time). This point is given soon after using teleport for the first time. Coincidence? Probably, but worth keeping an eye on anyways.
I’m expecting the next comic to have Sydney reaching for the Flyball to upgrade, then having Krona scream “NO! PUT IT THERE! THAT ONE! TRUST ME ON THIS!“
That would be amazing.
One can hope…
that’s a +1 for you
How much is it possible to agree with you about this? That’s how much I agree. Nerd synergy powers, activate! But also: finish out the flight speed line? Potentially useful, but boring. Selecting a new branch gave Sydney teleportation, which (used properly, and she’d better, this is Sydney) is a ridiculously overpowered skill. Typically written badly, because it’s story breaking. Let’s see Sydney open a new line, or… oooh, the unknown brown orb has something that looks like it might be an activation button. Pick that!
Yeah, I would think opening up a new orb entirely might be the best way to go.
My guess would be more long the line of “wait don’t spec it yet, I want to see what all this code does and if there’s a manual in here somewhere”
How much XP does Sydney get for finding the hidden option/cheat-code in her orbs? Please tell me that she is going to map out a development path with fellow gamer Kronos? (Honestly, part of me wants to see the military folks freak out when she ignores their “orders” to develop the recommended branch, in favor of a more optimal path… and then watch her/Kronos school Arc-Light on why their choice was dumb/sub-optimal.)
She is now in a position to find out what they do.
My god .
its full of stars .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1KIMiKTKPw
I looked into the sky and saw the stars as they danced about the heavens. And the stars, they saw me, a tiny being string for life on a floating speck of dust. They were creeped out and filed a restraining order. I don’t see them so much any more.
Heh.
“Yanno that old sayin’, bout if you stare into the abyss, it stares back? Yea, he fuckin’ won that staring competition.” – a character advising her boss to avoid contact with the person she’s describing
Man I stared into the abyss once, it screamed and ran away. Never bother me before my first infusion of caffeine and theobromine.
I tried staring into the abyss once. Well, it was either that or my head was up my…..
…Sup, Don Edwards?
We are stardust…
… but most of us are not Ziggy Stardust.
Week ago I was about to crack a joke how along with Sydney her near-clone seem to accumulate the most broken powersets, but I decided to wait and see before dropping it so as not to be unfair. Aaand immediately we get a system-level synergy between the two. How many arcs before they overthrow God?
That depends on how long it will take her to fill out all the blank points in the skill-tree.
Or how long it take Krona to find the free level up cheat.
Life hacker = Ball hacker?
Ok thats not how it sounded in my head… :P
…I feel sympathetic pain for you…
In the words of Seto kaiba, this reality is tedious, poorly designed and pathetically constructed. The one responsible should be fired.
It should be an interesting fight.
I hope those are tears of joy in Krona’s eyes and not the first sign of Mythos-induced insanity.
Those often go together…
Sanity is highly overrated….
sanity is only ‘accepted practice’, the truly insane never actually think they are so (so, if you’re claiming insanity as a defense, you really aren’t insane)
Insanity isn’t a medical term, but rather a legal one. It’s a reference to whether the defendant could (at the time of the act) distinguish between right and wrong or control their actions. Usually a successful plea of insanity is agreed upon by the prosecution and defense before the actual trial occurs. Many folks with the most severe mental problems do, in fact, realize that something’s wrong with them. They just can’t control their moods or actions.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050722094534/https://www.psych.org/public_info/insanity.cfm
Rather than insanity I think Krona might be heading for outsanity. For the insane it is ‘all in their head’. She can make it all be like that outside too.
I dunno… that could lead to being permanently knurd.
I think Krona might have ball envy.
*snickersnorts*
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking coffee, it would have ended up all over my screen.
I was, and I just ironed this shirt too.
Eat Vorpal Chips, the Snicker Snack!
I thought mini-snickers were the snicker snack?
+1
*sword slice*
+0.9 + 0.1
Max needs to get Krona transferred to ARCHON immediately, if just to help with analyzing Halo’s orbs.
Sydney and Krona as the dynamic duo? The universe ain’t ready for that…
Sydney: which one of us is the sidekick?
Krona: i think it’s my turn today.
Sydney: wanna trade?
Krona: only if i still get to wear the pixie boots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mpy_L-p398
Dabbler: Hey she just tagged along, she said she wanted to see her balls, and who am I to say no to a good inuendo
objdump -d /dev/universe/
True
Wait…
/dev/ – Really?
Yeah, /dev/ still only talking about manipulating the physical device universe… and not the control system behind it…
/dev/universe Gods dice bag on the velvety tabletop of space and time
/bin/ Gods player handbook
/ Gods GM Complete rules and appendices Vol 1 – 42
and for the REAL geeks: od /dev/universe
cdo /dev/eeinrsu
For OCD geeks.
cdo / dev / eeinrsuv
For even more OCD geeks
I love the fact that Krona is crying having been shown the code of the universe
Not sure if “crying” is quite the right word, though the one I’m thinking of also begins with a “c….”
I think those are tears of beholdment, for the beauty and perfection that is sydney’s orb code.
Krona has found true enlightenment…
I suppose the correct report would be something like: There is somebody in the basement of this facility who seems to be involved in the current situation. She is named Sconia and looks like a frankenstein’s monster with troll regeneration. There are hostages/victims down too. Send somebody over to deal with the situation, I/Halo has another level up und Krona can see some additional information about the orbs. So we are kind of locked down and send anybody who should be on Halo power investigation team over.
To translate: “Big bad is in the house, Halo’s Christmas tree just lit up like Armageddon. Max, Dabbler asses on site, like, yesterday!”
Her report should be “Max, get your ass here right now because the shit is starting to get really, really strange”….
“We think we found our baddy she’s got big teeth and regenerative powers and likes to drain blood from people but she’s definitely not a vampire nope and she’s got a hostage and she caught us me and Pixel I mean but then she didn’t and we’re not really sure what happened or didn’t and oh geez I just realized maybe she remembers all that stuff that didn’t happen too probably not it’s not supposed to work that way but Harem remembers and she shouldn’t either oh by the way I learned that the comm ball lets me teleport and I just leveled again but I can’t use my dot because Krona can actually make sense of my orbs when I level and I want her to get some answers but that goes away when I use my dot oh wait that means I can’t touch any of my orbs doesn’t it anyhow our big bad is here and maybe alert to our presence and I’m sidelined and Krona went insane from my level up so we could use reinforcements also I think Krona maybe broke the universe but she isn’t sure and we couldn’t get a straight answer on that even before my orbs drove her mad so I don’t know what to do about that anyway how’s your night been?”
….. okay, that’s not the proper way to report all that, but IS there a proper way to report “the universe might be broken but we’re not sure”?
Answering my own question, I just realized that “the universe might be broken but we’re not sure” falls easily under the acronym SNAFU.
Sure it’s not FUBAR?
FUBAR is for when you’re sure.
Situation Now All …… Up
….. Up Beyond All Reconition
I thought SNAFU meant “Situation Normal: All ****ed up”.
i thought FUBAR was F’ed Up Beyond All Repair
how to be polite when using nasty acronyms:
Fouled up beyond all recognition.
Sitch Normal, All Fouled Up.
Read The Fine Manual.
etc.
Yup, SNAFU is “Situation Normal:”
So they are basically the same: SNAFU for when things don’t change, FUBAR when they do
I love the fact you wrote that whole paragraph without any punctuation.. because that’s how Sydney would say it..
And then pass out because she didn’t stop for breath :P
Question: What triggered the skill tree this time? Sydney just discovered her teleportation power, but there wasn’t any *new* powers being used the last time, just a larger amount of energy being used than ever before. Or did Krona’s reality tampering do it, even though that was her and not Sydney?
My guess is that it was the achievement.
Hmm could be, she did get “master of understatement” a bit before leveling up last time
no, it was Maxima that Sydney was giving ‘master of understatement’ to.
Could be it is based on experience. Last time Sydney got a lot of experience suddenly by showing off her abilities and testing them out at the firing range/demonstration.
Right now she has had a near-death situation and did some time travelling (of sorts) so her experience has shot up quickly and high enough to warrant a new point.
Y’know. It occurs to me that Sydney level ups might not necessarily be experience based. So far she levels up whenever she figures out something new about her orbs. It might be the orbs are sentient to a degree and are un locking their powers based on how much Sydney understands them in order not to be overwhelmed. So kind of fail safe to prevent her from losing control and going supernova?
Just a tough.
…
…
…
Also, DING MOTHERFUCKA!
Why is this hard? Read the author’s notes…
She did likely use the flight orb and the PPO at the same time for the first time when destroying the tank.
no likely about it, she was. she can use two at once, problem is she only has two hands.. now… if she let someone do a little bit of genetic engineering and cloning and transplanting… ;)
With Varia’s help, make that FOUR hands. Shame they probably don’t realize that yet.
It was too obvious…
Three. Varia has to be touching you to gestalt. Unless that’s as simple as “shoulder to shoulder” or something. Which is really easy to come apart from.
They could just embrace really tightly.
While wearing bikinis (to maximize skin contact)? And… Leon through totally innocuous but logical reasons is stuck in one of the lockers?
Yeah, this could be the “Valentines Day” drawing that Dave mentions he’ll do later.
Maybe they can lock pinkies. That would leave the rest of the hand available to hold robs.
Hang on, why’s there a dog here? And why is it holding a sign saying “Hello I am
YorpRob”?And the shield enlargement too.
Sydney’s also done other stuff of significance since her last point. Most notably SHE is the one who came up with the way to defeat both Death Toll and, more importantly, she was the intregral power used to defeat Vehemence. I think a year long fight, followed by a fight against mannekillers, followed by a near death experience deathbattle/time travel thing is more than enough for another point.
my theory is the orbs are absorbing energy from supers and others around her. The grid never poped up pre-comic becase syd was never around supers. ALL of maxes blasting of her shield triggered the first event the assorted events since then including the time warp has triggered this one.
This has already been explained by Dave B, but when sydney has used the orbs enough, or gone thru different experiences with them, they can power up. Sydney never used the Orbs much, except to play around in her room, so never honestly got alot of experience using them. she got 1 orb after taking on the massive energy attack Maxima used plus the other stuff she was doing that day. Since then, she had a super fight, helped fight a main boss level supervillian, and now traveled thru time, and gets a 2nd orb point. It does tend to show sydney will need alot of variety in things happening to level, and or just a long time
Well, I guess you now have a potential vote incentive idea.
The full ball code.
I think that would be a long term project and something to be rendered in 3D.
I don’t think Dave has the time or energy for something so in depth at this time.
Maybe someone who is 100% familiar with 3D modeling software could render each of the blocks based on sketches for each of the subsections.
Definitely a long term project – maybe something for the Books kickstarter?
It’d be easier to apply the images of each section/subsection to say, a cylinder, than try to model all the details. And depending on how complex Dave intends the full thing to be, doing that would be kinder to the render engine than having to deal with all the polygons of it being fully modeled.
Animated. I want that all animated. Because our favorite artist has that kind of time…
I’d settle for the layers.
Sydney’s true response to Kronachrome: nerd!, but less intense
Wow… Thats alot data. But thats a data overload…
Wow, this is going to take a lot of Deep Thought…
I’ll bet it’s the pan-dimensional language WMDIT. And it says, roughly translated, 42.
For those of you wondering what a Matrioshka Brain is.
It’s an incomprehensibly powerful ultrasupercomputer powered by nested Dyson spheres.
https://youtu.be/Ef-mxjYkllw
Any relation to a Matryoshka Doll? o_O
Yes! The Dyson spheres are nested like the dolls. That’s where they got the term.
As the inner spheres convert sunlight to power they will radiate infrared light (heat) which is absorbed by the next layer. Who’s infrared radiation is absorbed by the next layer etc etc until the outer layer is radiating less energy than the cosmic background radiation. Not the most materials efficient design but for sheer unadulterated power generation not much beats it. Channel that into a stupidly huge supercomputer and you’ve got something on par with all of the human race multiplied by several hundred orders of magnitude in brain power.
Which raises the question: Would a single Matrioshka Brain be the like a single neuron in the brain of God?
O.O
And Sir James has already patented it for his next generation of vacuum cleaner, no doubt!
(Yes, I know, wrong Dyson!)
NESTED Dyson sphere?
Kind of reminds me of the guy who built a basic computer inside of minecraft that could do basic math stuff.
Something like that but many, MANY orders of magnitude bigger. But like a lot.
Wow … Thanks for that link!
2 hrs later I know a lot more about various future topics
No problem! I’m a big fan of Isaac Arthur’s channel. Lots of fun stuff like this.
Good thing Halo has that stationary/arts and crafts bag on her tool belt :)
Sydney needs to take out her sticker sheet and put 1 through 7 stars on each of her orbs. She could then call Shenron and ask him for a copy of the owner’s manual.
Shenlong*
No disrespect intended. Apparently, the name was altered in the English language version.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenlong_(disambiguation)
The actual characters read as “Shen Long” in Chinese but the Japanese language includes only syllables that end in vowel sounds, with the one exception of the n. This led to the official Japanese pronunciation and phonetic writing becoming “Shen Lon” but, as we hopefully know, Ls and Rs are the same sound in both Japanese and Chinese.
Note that the actual Japanese reading of those symbols is completely different as dragon is “Ryu”, not “Shen”
Or they’re both ‘L in Chinese but both ‘R’ in Japanese…
That’s not the manual – that’s the decompiled source code without the comments. She MIGHT be able to figure out SOME of it, but I think it’s incomplete.
You to know that by showing us this you’re going to have to give us a detailed diagram of all that background information.
Hmm, asking Dave for a detailed diagram of Halo’s Skill Tree cheat sheet, or for him to work on a belated VDSD pinup. Choose wisely.
Give skill tree, way sexier
Hmm? A full detailed unblocked view of Krona’s perspective of the skill tree, of course. Why is this even a question?
Mathematics. If Krona changes the toggle ‘4th wall, naked view = enabled’ then both the skill tree and Halo should be naked. Likewise Krona herself, if we get to see the ten times bigger version with the double-page spread.
I approve of this product and/or service.
Hmm, I seem to have forgotten wwhich name I normally post under here. I know there’s another poster who normally goes by “Wanderer:” my apologies if he or she is around. Had a computer mishap in which all my cookies vanished and I got logged out of everywhere, so I’m having to remember all the various names I go by in different places which are normally auto-filled in for me.
Random Wanderer is indeed a familiar and respected name and does match the previous uses with your lovely avatar.
You need to realize that a lot of us on here are true nerds, we do not value nudity or sexiness, we value knowledge and curiosity.
Indeed, knowledge and curiosity are paramount. And as a true nerd, I have a burning curiosity for the knowledge of what Halo and Krona look like naked. ;-P
I like Krona’s reaction to Sydney’s orbs and freaking out about it….!
Hell, it’s funny to see that Sidney is still a bit gunshy when her orbs go into pre-skillup overdrive mode. Her expression in panel 2 is amazing.
Well, considering the last time that happened, they chased after her
That last time is when Sydney learned that she can run, but she can’t hide…
;)
And naked boy-butts feel weird
I think we just witnessed the comic’s first on-screen spontaneous orgasm.
Random theory time!
It occurred to me that the ‘Level Up’ system has some interesting implications as it is shown here. My big one? Sydney is not the first to use the orbs.
Let’s start with the more solid stuff
-Sydney did not start at level 1. The currently filled dots confirm this.
-Due to some unknown condition (which we will call gaining EXP) the orbs occasionally grant a point with which to fill a node. We PRESUME each node represents a power, or increase to existing ability.
-We know (from her minor injuries) that Sydney has not been granted immunity to damage when her shield is down. She can be killed.
Based on how many are filled, the existence of previous users makes the most sense as to why these nodes are filled. Each user levels up the orbs until they die/are killed. The progress earned transfers to the next user.
Why do I say this? Well, let’s look at what leveled Sydney up vs what did not. She leveled at the press conference and just now after time weirdness. NOT at the bank or the Vehemence fight OR at any point during her early experiments with the orbs. As such, we know that a single large fight or the normal passage of time do not trigger a level up. The take-away is that leveling up is not the easiest thing in the world if the Vehemence fight doesn’t count for a level. This means that significant risks must be taken by the user for a level to be earned.
Since more than 20 nodes are filled in, that means someone(s) spent a lot longer with the orbs than Sydney has so far. Those 20 nodes (EXP wise) translate into a lot of risky situations the last user would have needed to survive. All it takes is one bad day and BAM! Orbs sitting in the ocean all alone, ready to be discovered by our protagonist.
I agree with you on most of what you said here. Though you have to remember that the Vehemence fight was very shortly after her previous level up (still the same day only a few hours later). After the level up her current EXP, or at least the ‘EXP needed till next level’, might have been reset and while she probably got a lot of EXP during the fighting it was just not enough to get another level up at that moment.
We must also take notice that the skill tree did NOT appear until Sydney was in a relatively calm & safe situation after some intense activity. Sort of like the AD&D concept that a character doesn’t actually get a new level until the adventure is done & found a Class Trainer.
Small detail to add to this theory: whoever else used these orbs does not seem to be very well known. Perhaps they had just travelled through space, through time or across dimensions before crash landing on earth?
Or merely died before accurate recording of events…
On reflection , Sydney found the Orbs in a treasure chest and they do appear anchored/bound to her, from discovery..
Hypothesis, last user around 1500 ad, when Naval traffic was just starting around America(and Florida Keys)
Last user used a string box to store orbs(like Tubey for Sydney) and simply died in bad weather(it’s hard to open a strong box while drowning….)
Last user could be any number of famous naval personnel, with luck and skill being attributed for the their success instead of a hidden set of orbs…
Last user could also be simply someone travelling by boat with fame elsewhere….
She didn’t find the orbs in a treasure chest. She found one while diving, the fly orb, and when she touched/activated it they were bound to her and came flying in. The diving is seen within comic and the other orbs rushing to her are on a drawing on DaveB’s deviantart page.
I agree though it might just have been too long ago, or too obscure, for any recollection of things to have survived or their success was attributed to more mundane means.
Great, now I’m imagining what might have happened with the last user of the orbs to have the orbs get scattered around a small stretch of ocean.
Like they were travelling via boat but they were not travelling alone but with loved ones, since the fly orb lets them fly much faster than any other form of transportation. But then something happened to the ship and they noticed too late to do something about it and then had to choose between saving themselves or staying behind with their loved ones….
This is getting too sad but I can’t stop thinking about it…
-Great, now I’m imagining what might have happened with the last user of the orbs to have the orbs get scattered around a small stretch of ocean.-
maybe they go all dragon balls and scatter all over the world when the user dies or something similar? in a way to maximize the chance of being found?
It does seem pretty certain that there was a previous owner, and likely that they died and the orbs were stuck in the sea for some time until they were found. How they died could be fairly prosaic though.
Old age? Investigating the seabed, didn’t notice they were running out of air and didn’t get to the surface in time? Traveling to Oregon and caught dysentery?” could be any number of things really.
Sir Francis Drake was reputed to be a magician, and he was buried at sea: Admittedly in RL that was off the [Caribbean] coast of Panama, but — even if he didn’t die in a different location instead in this story’s backstory — allowing for several centuries of currents moving stuff around…
Random thought, since a presumably human or humanoid orb user only two hands, it is entirely possible the previous user was caught over open ocean with their shield down while flying. Kind of how Sydney nearly took herself down PPOing the tank with collateral damage. I can imagine a scenario where someone was using, say, the Fly Ball and Lighthook to fish something out of the ocean while being ganked unawares. Maybe shot. User dies, Orbs fall into the ocean for Sydney to find.
This might not be so solid. For the orbs to be useful at all they need to start with some base level of capability. Sort of like a D&D character starting with all 8s in their stats, and then getting points to buy up the stats to build the character desired.
Otherwise some poor fool would be roaming around with a bunch of useless ioun stones orbiting his head for years before being able to fly, or put up a force field, etc.
Maybe they’re given out at birth/reaching adulthood and part of some rite of passage is leveling them up?
It actually is. The orbs probably did have a base level of operation. For instance the fly orb without any points, or just one depending which is base, might only let someone hover or move at brisk walking pace. PPO at base might only have been strong enough to start a fire.
But the first time the skill tree shows up, which is also the first time Sydney sees it, shows several points have already been added to the orbs to increase their capabilities. This suggests there were one or several others before Sydney who accumulated points to add to the orbs.
It’s still just speculation without anything to back it up. It would be perfectly natural to place the default abilities in the same tree as the possible expanded abilities. Why re-invent the wheel when you’re making your cosmic orbs, after all?
The default abilities could then be detailed in the instructions/owner’s manual, so that the user could more easily visualize the capabilities as they appear in the tree. A good set of instructions would include details on how to go about advancing and customizing the ‘build,’ assuming that the orbs work like skill trees in a number of video games where no one person could fill every slot, but has to create their own custom build from a set of limited choices.
or Sydney’s the only owner of the orbs and this is her, reborn, as Sydney…
I can see that Krona will be wanting to hang with Sydney, no matter what it takes.
Arianna, get here with your contracts!
a contract with a reality hacker might be a bit tough to write, all things considered…
Writing it isn’t the hard part. Preventing unauthorized amendments & enforcing it would be hard.
Suddenly realized….Krona might be able to get away with the old “deal with the devil signed in blood” thing without losing her soul. Just rewrite the contract before time is up, or change the blood’s DNA. “What? Me? I would never sign such a contract. You’ve got the wrong girl, Mr. Satan, sir.”
That’s not quite far enough- IIRC, the idea behind the devil getting your soul is that the soul is enslaved to the devil or something similar. Hence, I’d take a page from the devil’s playbook and make it so if the contract is brooken by either party, the devil is now my slave. ( if you’re extra mean, change it so you also get the devil’s soul if the contract is fulfilled)
Angels don’t have souls. According to the bible, god invented the soul with the human, because he wanted something with free will. Angels did not fill that roll.
There is a big flaw with the logic, I am afraid. A contract is written before goods or services are provided. So if you roll back time, to a point prior to the signing, then none of the benifits would be retained either.
Not that this is a bad thing. Most associated stories are morality tales which show that the effemeral things we desire so badly that we might risk selling our soul for are actually not of any value. So the individuals realise they have been fools, as they will have to pay an eternal price despite having gained nothing of real value.
Therefore they would be very happy to negate the whole deal.
But it would be silly to enter into an arrangement, intending to do that from the outset. The Devil is a notoriously tricky fellow and is more than likely to find a way of preventing such an attempt to escape the contact! And, yet again, with no chance of any win for the other party.
Garbler said to rewrite the contract before the time is up, not reverse time to before the contract was signed
Which makes no sense, as you cannot re-write a contract with the Devil, it is fixed. Besides which if you could rewrite it you would not need to time travel. You would just get your pen out and alter it.
Try doing that with any contract, in the world, and you will be either laughed out of court (if they are generous) or thrown in jail for fraud, or some similar offence. Whereas the Devil has his own ways to punish such infractions.
As such I interpreted it the way I assumed was intended, given the time-travel element involved.
Didn’t say it made sense or would work, was just pointing out what Garbler actually typed :P
Remember: Kronachrome can hack reality, including adding that cute little birthmark to Satan’s heiny ;)
A “Spank me” tattoo.
Make it this weeks incentive!
Cool as this is, does Halo really need another powerup? She’s barely used her existing skillset.
I think she earned that point from an achievement rather than a level up, because MMO rules
So, does this confirm Krona to be Sydney’s friend and a regular of the cast?
I feel like they have so many ways to get along now.
Point buy systems. Combining super powers with shopping. So beautiful…
I hope this doesn’t happen to Krona: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoMadFromTheRevelation
In another note, all of this kind of reinforces my own personal theory about the orbs…
This immediately evoked a portion of the Van Halen, um, lyrics? for Hot for Teacher:
My vision is her writing on her hand then shouting “CONFERENCE ROOM!!!”
It does not fit with the current story line, but what would have made it funnier would be to have Sydney and the team complete the rescue mission and have the skill tree pop up in the hidden lab. At that point Sciona (thought to be dead of course) raises up from the floor and shoots one of the team. We jump back to the rooftop with Krona explaining her set point. We get a beat panel of a flustered Sydney and then see her yelling NOOOOOO!
Heh.
Even worse if it turns out that, very very rarely, the orbs randomly grant two picks. And that was one occasion.
My god, I have never more wanted to know what the hell was going on with those orbs! PLEASE NEW ISSUE! I WILL GO TO YOUR PATREON!
Everyone, pay this man to get this comic out more often!
Heh. He’s peddling as fast as he can. :D
DaveB has given up sleeping and eating and wears adult Depends undergarments for our sake already.
Let’s let him keep the hot showers and the occasional television episode, mkay?
::wiggles his ears humorously::
No one wants to see God’s ‘dice’ bag.
Krona has just seen God’s dice bag open up while she was looking into Shaman’s medicine pouch…
Oh, thank goodness, I was afraid you were using a euphemism too.
Okay, something everyone seems to be not asking: why the level up now? What has she done in the last five minutes to cause her balls to start glowing (but not rapid spin) now and not after she wound up back on the roof?
Seems to be consistent with the delay between firing the PPO and her last level up. Must be some processing time involved.
Aside the processing time there might also be a delay build in to prevent the grid from showing up while she is in the middle of an intense situation.
Or not necessarily a delay but having to be in a calm state of mind. After the reset she was highly excited but might have calmed down while waiting and listening to the other teams checking in.
It would be bad if the orb user vanquished an enemy in an aerial dogfight only to be rewarded by all the orbs going inactive at 10,0000 feet in the air.
Yes, those all make sense
That could, of course, have been what happened to whoever last owned them. flying over the ocean, skill tree comes up, Former owner of the orbs starts cursing their luck.
I bet they wished they chose the ‘water breathing’ option after all.
wouldn’t actually help- the idea is the orbs aren’t actually active during this- hence why they hit the sea- so 1) they hit hard enough for the impact to be lethal- it doesn’t have to be that high ( 46 metres- which is if anything quite low for a flight over sea) 2) the balls are inactive, and if you’re drowning, you can’t concentrate enough to grab an orb.
All fair comment. Bar the last point. I have been there a couple of times and am still kicking because you can concentrate. Imminent death requires you to do so.
Of course those who failed at the task are not here to argue their side. So there may be some selection bias in the survey.
I guess the code is visible because the orbs are in upgrade mode; maybe they need to recompile with the added power access?
(Now if Krona can only hack together an skillpoint duplication cheat, we will have reached maximum OP…)
From the looks of it, only Kronachrome can see the code, no one, not even Dabbles, saw that last time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5jRewnxSBY
I probably owned that album 10 years before hearing it when I wasn’t stoned. That was trippy forca daylight experience.
I think Krona sees the base code of physical objects the same way Tedd from EGS can see the base code of magic. https://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1946
Krona and Sydney are destined to be the best of nerdiest dorkiest friends >_>
I look forward to them having game night together. And someone making sure that Krona hasn’t luck hacked her dice.
Not all games require dice. There is the movement of a playing piece based on player decisions.
I would love to see them play Star Fleet Battles though that might kill Dave if he tried to draw all those ships, especially if they were using the advanced drone rules.
….. I shall fire my point defense phaser IIIs on your pesky drones when they get within range. What? There are two other waves coming in at higher speed? What do you mean they MIRV? How many? Do we have enough counters? Counters? Do we have enough dice? Told you we should have played Mauler Ball instead.
they MUST play the droid battle game from Star Wars where R2D2 was about to defeat Chewbacca
I would like that. Although Sydney does seem to have been irritated, in the final panel, that Krona has stolen her thunder. Plus the orbs are Sydney’s thing. Somebody else should not know more about them than her.
Going by Sydney’s expression, in the final panel. Hopefully just a momentary thing, before she realises that she has found a kindred spirit.